Pieces of the Memories (Drabble Set 1)
Title: Pieces of the Memories
Author: audreyii_fic
Fandom: Twilight (Team Jacob)
Rating: T
Characters: Swan Family, Black Family, Clearwater Family
Genre: Humor/Angst/Friendship
Warnings: Occasional language.
banner courtesy of lilabut
Summary:
Renee leaves Charlie and Bella. AU drabble series.
click here for awards and recomendations
A/N: This is for _argustar , who wanted to see more of this scenario (which, by the way, was hit out of the park by monroeslittle in Then It's Your Choice, so if you like the concept go check that out). It wound up being a good place to put all my frustrations from the aborted Charlie Drabbles. I'll return to this series whenever the mood strikes (that is, whenever I need a little break from other projects), but it has no set end, so don't think of it as a WIP.
Also, yes, in time there will be baby!Jake as well as baby!Bells. He has to be born first though.
Pieces of the Memories
After She Left (Sarah)
"I'm going to kill that bitch," Sue seethes. (That is what Sue does -- she seethes.) "I'm going to hunt her down and snatch her bald-headed."
"Hush," Sarah murmurs. (That is what Sarah does -- she murmurs.) And she nods towards the doorway. "Little pitchers." Peeking out of the hall into the living room are three small dark heads. Two of them have already started repeating everything they hear; the Swear Jar in the Blacks' house paid for Sarah's new microwave.
"Oh. Right." Sue's daughter isn't talking yet, so she doesn't know what it's like to say Finish your peas and hear Hell no back. (The Clearwaters' Swear Jar will make the Blacks' Swear Jar look like pocket change. Billy is awful but Sue's mouth could curdle cream.) "Girls, this is grown-up language," Sue says firmly. "We don't say 'bitch' until we're thirteen. Understand?"
Sarah has known Sue for all of their twenty-three years, but sometimes she still doesn't understand how that woman's mind works. She adds, "Rachel, Rebecca, go back to your room. Show Leah your Care Bears, okay?"
Rachel and Rebecca are nineteen months old. They still manage to give Sarah identical eyerolls. It's a very Billy expression. But when Sarah frowns at them, they grab Leah's hands -- nearly pulling the baby off her unsteady feet -- and disappear down the hall. A moment later a door slams, not entirely blocking the sound of very elaborate Baby English explaining the nature of a 'Care Bear Stare'.
Sarah shakes her head and turns back to the shell-shocked man sitting on her couch. "All right, honey. Did she say where she was going?"
"No." The word is dry, and Charlie swallows. "She just said... she said it didn't work out. She said she really hates Forks. I would've moved anywhere she wanted to go..."
Sue snorts. "What, she's too good for this place? Fuck that." Sarah shoots her a severe look, and Sue throws up her hands. "Fine, fine. But this is nothing that some tire-slashing wouldn't solve."
"Go make coffee, Sue." Ignoring the grumbling from the kitchen, Sarah sits down in Billy's recliner and tries to catch her friend's eye. Charlie's as much a part of her family as Harry and Sue are and it hurts to see him in pain. "Maybe she just needs to get away for a weekend. You know, after the girls were born I thought about running away sometimes. If I'd been awake enough to operate a car I might've headed to Seattle for a few days and gone to a spa or something."
"She gave me this, Sarah," Charlie says hollowly. He pulls something out of his pocket and holds it out; Sarah takes Renee's wedding ring, stunned. "She said she didn't feel right about keeping it."
That bitch. (Just because Sarah doesn't say these things out loud doesn't mean she doesn't think them.)
Charlie's white face is even whiter than usual. "What am I supposed to do now?"
Sarah is spared coming up with an answer by the opening of the front door; Billy walks in, stomping snow off his boots. "Hey, Charlie, saw the cruiser out front, I thought you were--" He trails off as Sarah gives him a significant look. "What's going on?"
"That bitch left him." Sue comes out of the kitchen with two cups of coffee. "You're better off, Charlie. I always hated the woman."
"Billy, where's Harry?" Sarah says, looking at her husband a little desperately. Someone needs to rein Sue in and Harry is the only one who knows how.
"He's picking up stuff for fish fry." Billy is glancing between Sue and Sarah and Charlie, and his eyes widen. "You're not kidding."
Sarah shakes her head.
Billy's face reddens, and he mouths That bitch to Sue. Sue nods vigorously. None of them had thought the marriage was a good idea but it never occurred to Sarah that Renee would do something like this...
A loud wailing breaks the silence, and Charlie looks down in terror at the bundle in his arms. "I-- I don't--"
"Billy, there's a can of formula and some bottles in the cabinet over the fridge," Sarah says calmly as she stands. "Six ounces will probably do it. Sue, please get one of Leah's diapers out of your bag, they're a little big but they'll do for right now. I'll go find a warmer blanket. That dress is too thin for this weather, Charlie."
Charlie looks crushed in too many ways to count. "It is? I just... I put her in something and came over, I didn't think--"
"It's fine, it was a good choice," she assures him. "It's just gotten colder since you arrived. Don't worry." Any tiny criticism might shatter him right now. Charlie needs to believe he's capable of what he has to do... because in spite of her words, Sarah doesn't really believe Renee is coming back.
The wailing lessens as Charlie awkwardly lifts his infant daughter over his shoulder and pats her back. "It's okay, Bella," he whispers. "Don't cry. It's fine. It's gonna be fine."
Sarah hopes so.
***
Noises (Charlie)
Charlie looks down at Isabella in her crib. She looks back up at him.
Charlie hadn't even wanted the name Isabella (which he suspects Renee got off of one of those soap operas she liked). He'd wanted something straight-forward, like Harry and Billy's girls. Elizabeth had been his first choice. It felt like a good compromise. Elizabeth was kind of like Isabella. They could call her Beth for short. Beth Swan.
Her name is Isabella Marie. In the end it didn't seem fair to tell Renee what she could name the child she'd carried for nine months and then pushed out of her body after sixteen hours of hard labor. But when Renee had cooed Izzy as the baby nursed, Charlie put his foot down for the first and only time in their short marriage. Not Izzy, he'd said. Bella. We're calling her Bella.
Renee had glared at him.
Maybe that's why she left.
Bella makes a noise and kicks her feet. Charlie's not sure if it's a happy noise, or a sad noise, or a hungry noise, or a wet noise... "Are you okay?" he asks his daughter hesitantly.
Bella just makes the noise again.
He has no idea what he's doing, and he's pretty sure his daughter can tell.
It's not like he didn't know he'd been more in love with Renee than she'd been with him. They'd met in college; he'd had a life-threatening crush on the blond girl with the zest for life, though she'd seen him as little more than an acquaintance. But she'd stayed in Seattle after graduation and he'd returned to Forks to join the police force, and he'd figured they'd probably never see each other again.
Then, kismet. They'd happened to cross paths in Port Angeles a year later. Renee was getting over the end of a relationship. Charlie lent a sympathetic ear over a bottle of red wine.
The condom broke.
Three weeks later she'd been in tears in his living room, terrified of what her very Catholic mother would say. But Charlie knew fate when he saw it. His parents had died while he was in school (his father of cancer, his mother six months later of heartbreak) and he owned their house and some savings. He had a good job. And after all, Billy and Harry were happy, weren't they?
Let's go down to the courthouse, he'd said. I'll take care of you. Both of you. I promise.
Renee had teased him later about how unromantic the whole thing had been.
Maybe that's why she left.
Charlie's dead on his feet but Bella's wide awake. What if she starts crying and he doesn't wake up? Maybe he should bring her to sleep in bed with him. Renee had done that sometimes. But wouldn't that be weird? He's her father, not her mother. Except now he has to be both, doesn't he?
If she has a bottle, will she go to sleep? He didn't know what kind of formula to get -- Renee had been breastfeeding -- so he'd picked up a can of every kind the little grocery store carried. Bella seems to like the soy one best, but what if it doesn't have enough nutrients? Don't babies need real milk?
He could call Sarah and ask. Except it's two in the morning and Billy would kill him.
The marriage hadn't started out on the best foot, but as her belly got bigger Renee had gotten more enthusiastic. She'd painted the kitchen cabinets. She'd bought pink curtains and lace booties (she'd been certain from the beginning it was a girl). Her hormones had gone haywire during the second trimester and they'd made love constantly, sometimes three or four times a day. There hadn't been any openings at the elementary school, but she'd put in applications everywhere between Sequim and Aberdeen (the commute didn't intimidate her) and she'd been confident that something would turn up.
Renee's smile lit up his life, and Charlie was so in love that he didn't even mind that he never went to La Push anymore. (Charlie suspected she'd picked up on their uncertainty about her; even Harry with his endless optimism had asked him what the hell he was thinking. Charlie knew they meant well, but a little more support would've been nice.)
The only problem was that Renee had grown up an army brat, and she'd spent two-thirds of her life in Arizona. Charlie loved the weather in Forks -- it made everything so green and alive -- but Renee had always been waiting for the sun to come out. She looked out the window more and more as time went on, and after Bella was born it seemed like that was all Renee had done. Just look out the window and cry.
Maybe that's why she left.
Bella makes that noise again, and Charlie feels like the worst parent in history. Bella is turning four months old next week and she speaks a completely different language from him. Harry and Billy and Sue and Sarah all seem to know what each tiny squeak means from their kids. He doesn't. He's trying to learn -- he's taken a three month leave of absence from the force while he figures out his life -- but he just doesn't understand her.
"I don't know what to do with you," he whispers at his baby. "I'm sorry."
Isabella gives him what can only be described as a frustrated look, then raises her arms impatiently. And she makes the noise.
Charlie picks her up.
Bella rests her head on his chest, puts her thumb in her mouth, and falls asleep.
***
Snacks and Brothers (Sue)
Sue brandishes a Barbie doll at the girls threateningly. "If you all don't sit and watch your movie and shut up for five minutes, I'm going to take you into the woods and leave you there to be raised by wolves."
Rachel and Rebecca give her identical smirks. Leah ignores her entirely. But Bella stares wide-eyed and falls silent, curling her two-year-old self meekly into the couch.
Sue likes Bella.
Saturday mornings are baby-sitting mornings. Sarah's at home with these kids all day, every day, and also she's incubating; Sue doesn't begrudge her wanting to sleep in and have five hours to herself for once. And the guys get up at five AM to go fishing. They get all cranky and shit if they don't have their private man-time at least once a week.
So the kids get dropped off at the Clearwaters' house, and Sue wrangles four children under the age of four until noon. She has not yet killed any of them, but it is only a matter of time.
(Many people expect that Sue, being a nurse, will have a sweet and warm bedside manner. Sue is not that kind of nurse. Sue is the nurse they call when the patient needs to be threatened with an enema before he'll take his medication.)
"I wanna snack," Rebecca says. At Sue's narrowed eyes she quickly adds, "Please."
If their mouths are full they'll talk less. "All right. What do you want?"
"Peenabutter cups!"
"Nem-an-nems!"
"Cheese!"
She knows it's her own fault for asking an open-ended question, but still Sue snaps, "Quiet. You can have goldfish or you can have pretzels."
A chorus of groans.
"Oh, nothing then? Okay, that's fine--"
"Goldfish."
"Goldfish."
"Goalfishes."
No response.
Sue glances at Bella. The Black twins run roughshod over the little thing; even Leah talks right through the girl's whispered sentences. Sue keeps waiting for the other kids' outgoing personalities to rub off, but apparently Bella's too much like Charlie. (And thank God for that. The more of her father she's got in her the less room there is for her mother. Sue still wants to spit whenever she hears that bitch's name.) "And what do you want, Bella?"
"Prezzles, Missus Kearaller please," she whispers.
Sue really likes Bella.
"All right, then." She points back at the television. "Watch the movie and sit still and I'll get your snacks."
"And apple juice?"
"Yes, and apple juice." Enthusiastic cheers, drowned out when Leah pokes at the remote and Tchaikovsky starts to play. Sue encourages them to watch Sleeping Beauty because the heroines are middle-aged spinster ladies and the villain is a gorgeous woman who can turn into a dragon. Cinderella is not allowed in the front door. No girl that Sue has any influence over will learn that tidy housekeeping will get you a man.
Admittedly, Sue's man loves her in spite of the fact that there's a two foot stack of dirty dishes in the sink. But still.
"And we're gonna have a baby brother," Rachel is explaining when Sue comes out of the kitchen with the snacks. "And we're gonna name the baby Prince Phillip like in the movie."
Rebecca shoves Rachel back into the couch cushion. "Are not. We're gonna name the baby The Tramp like in the dog movie."
"Nuh-uh!"
"Uh-huh!"
Leah looks up at Sue excitedly. "Mama, I wanna baby brother!"
"Baby brothers only come to big girls who use the potty," Sue explains. (Harry has been hinting recently that another child might be nice. Sue has no intention of going off the pill until Leah's out of diapers.) She sets the goldfish box on the couch and gives a plastic baggie of pretzels to Bella.
"I wanna brotha too," Bella says.
Sue frowns. Charlie has shown no signs of dating whatsoever. "Well... maybe one day."
Bella looks down and picks at the edge of her diaper thoughtfully.
"If you want," Rebecca says, sticking her arm in the goldfish box up to the elbow, "you c'n borrow our brother sometimes."
"Yeah. Mommy says babies are noisy." Rachel makes a face. "So we might not want Prince Phillip all the time."
Bella's eyebrows scrunch together. "But... she's not my brotha. Right?"
"He," Sue corrects. "Brothers are boys, so he'll be a he, not a she."
The girls look at her blankly, then...
"A boy?"
"We don't wanna boy!"
"Gross!"
"Ew!"
Sue makes a mental note to renew her birth control prescription.
( next)
Author: audreyii_fic
Fandom: Twilight (Team Jacob)
Rating: T
Characters: Swan Family, Black Family, Clearwater Family
Genre: Humor/Angst/Friendship
Warnings: Occasional language.
banner courtesy of lilabut
Summary:
Renee leaves Charlie and Bella. AU drabble series.
click here for awards and recomendations
A/N: This is for _argustar , who wanted to see more of this scenario (which, by the way, was hit out of the park by monroeslittle in Then It's Your Choice, so if you like the concept go check that out). It wound up being a good place to put all my frustrations from the aborted Charlie Drabbles. I'll return to this series whenever the mood strikes (that is, whenever I need a little break from other projects), but it has no set end, so don't think of it as a WIP.
Also, yes, in time there will be baby!Jake as well as baby!Bells. He has to be born first though.
Pieces of the Memories
After She Left (Sarah)
"I'm going to kill that bitch," Sue seethes. (That is what Sue does -- she seethes.) "I'm going to hunt her down and snatch her bald-headed."
"Hush," Sarah murmurs. (That is what Sarah does -- she murmurs.) And she nods towards the doorway. "Little pitchers." Peeking out of the hall into the living room are three small dark heads. Two of them have already started repeating everything they hear; the Swear Jar in the Blacks' house paid for Sarah's new microwave.
"Oh. Right." Sue's daughter isn't talking yet, so she doesn't know what it's like to say Finish your peas and hear Hell no back. (The Clearwaters' Swear Jar will make the Blacks' Swear Jar look like pocket change. Billy is awful but Sue's mouth could curdle cream.) "Girls, this is grown-up language," Sue says firmly. "We don't say 'bitch' until we're thirteen. Understand?"
Sarah has known Sue for all of their twenty-three years, but sometimes she still doesn't understand how that woman's mind works. She adds, "Rachel, Rebecca, go back to your room. Show Leah your Care Bears, okay?"
Rachel and Rebecca are nineteen months old. They still manage to give Sarah identical eyerolls. It's a very Billy expression. But when Sarah frowns at them, they grab Leah's hands -- nearly pulling the baby off her unsteady feet -- and disappear down the hall. A moment later a door slams, not entirely blocking the sound of very elaborate Baby English explaining the nature of a 'Care Bear Stare'.
Sarah shakes her head and turns back to the shell-shocked man sitting on her couch. "All right, honey. Did she say where she was going?"
"No." The word is dry, and Charlie swallows. "She just said... she said it didn't work out. She said she really hates Forks. I would've moved anywhere she wanted to go..."
Sue snorts. "What, she's too good for this place? Fuck that." Sarah shoots her a severe look, and Sue throws up her hands. "Fine, fine. But this is nothing that some tire-slashing wouldn't solve."
"Go make coffee, Sue." Ignoring the grumbling from the kitchen, Sarah sits down in Billy's recliner and tries to catch her friend's eye. Charlie's as much a part of her family as Harry and Sue are and it hurts to see him in pain. "Maybe she just needs to get away for a weekend. You know, after the girls were born I thought about running away sometimes. If I'd been awake enough to operate a car I might've headed to Seattle for a few days and gone to a spa or something."
"She gave me this, Sarah," Charlie says hollowly. He pulls something out of his pocket and holds it out; Sarah takes Renee's wedding ring, stunned. "She said she didn't feel right about keeping it."
That bitch. (Just because Sarah doesn't say these things out loud doesn't mean she doesn't think them.)
Charlie's white face is even whiter than usual. "What am I supposed to do now?"
Sarah is spared coming up with an answer by the opening of the front door; Billy walks in, stomping snow off his boots. "Hey, Charlie, saw the cruiser out front, I thought you were--" He trails off as Sarah gives him a significant look. "What's going on?"
"That bitch left him." Sue comes out of the kitchen with two cups of coffee. "You're better off, Charlie. I always hated the woman."
"Billy, where's Harry?" Sarah says, looking at her husband a little desperately. Someone needs to rein Sue in and Harry is the only one who knows how.
"He's picking up stuff for fish fry." Billy is glancing between Sue and Sarah and Charlie, and his eyes widen. "You're not kidding."
Sarah shakes her head.
Billy's face reddens, and he mouths That bitch to Sue. Sue nods vigorously. None of them had thought the marriage was a good idea but it never occurred to Sarah that Renee would do something like this...
A loud wailing breaks the silence, and Charlie looks down in terror at the bundle in his arms. "I-- I don't--"
"Billy, there's a can of formula and some bottles in the cabinet over the fridge," Sarah says calmly as she stands. "Six ounces will probably do it. Sue, please get one of Leah's diapers out of your bag, they're a little big but they'll do for right now. I'll go find a warmer blanket. That dress is too thin for this weather, Charlie."
Charlie looks crushed in too many ways to count. "It is? I just... I put her in something and came over, I didn't think--"
"It's fine, it was a good choice," she assures him. "It's just gotten colder since you arrived. Don't worry." Any tiny criticism might shatter him right now. Charlie needs to believe he's capable of what he has to do... because in spite of her words, Sarah doesn't really believe Renee is coming back.
The wailing lessens as Charlie awkwardly lifts his infant daughter over his shoulder and pats her back. "It's okay, Bella," he whispers. "Don't cry. It's fine. It's gonna be fine."
Sarah hopes so.
***
Noises (Charlie)
Charlie looks down at Isabella in her crib. She looks back up at him.
Charlie hadn't even wanted the name Isabella (which he suspects Renee got off of one of those soap operas she liked). He'd wanted something straight-forward, like Harry and Billy's girls. Elizabeth had been his first choice. It felt like a good compromise. Elizabeth was kind of like Isabella. They could call her Beth for short. Beth Swan.
Her name is Isabella Marie. In the end it didn't seem fair to tell Renee what she could name the child she'd carried for nine months and then pushed out of her body after sixteen hours of hard labor. But when Renee had cooed Izzy as the baby nursed, Charlie put his foot down for the first and only time in their short marriage. Not Izzy, he'd said. Bella. We're calling her Bella.
Renee had glared at him.
Maybe that's why she left.
Bella makes a noise and kicks her feet. Charlie's not sure if it's a happy noise, or a sad noise, or a hungry noise, or a wet noise... "Are you okay?" he asks his daughter hesitantly.
Bella just makes the noise again.
He has no idea what he's doing, and he's pretty sure his daughter can tell.
It's not like he didn't know he'd been more in love with Renee than she'd been with him. They'd met in college; he'd had a life-threatening crush on the blond girl with the zest for life, though she'd seen him as little more than an acquaintance. But she'd stayed in Seattle after graduation and he'd returned to Forks to join the police force, and he'd figured they'd probably never see each other again.
Then, kismet. They'd happened to cross paths in Port Angeles a year later. Renee was getting over the end of a relationship. Charlie lent a sympathetic ear over a bottle of red wine.
The condom broke.
Three weeks later she'd been in tears in his living room, terrified of what her very Catholic mother would say. But Charlie knew fate when he saw it. His parents had died while he was in school (his father of cancer, his mother six months later of heartbreak) and he owned their house and some savings. He had a good job. And after all, Billy and Harry were happy, weren't they?
Let's go down to the courthouse, he'd said. I'll take care of you. Both of you. I promise.
Renee had teased him later about how unromantic the whole thing had been.
Maybe that's why she left.
Charlie's dead on his feet but Bella's wide awake. What if she starts crying and he doesn't wake up? Maybe he should bring her to sleep in bed with him. Renee had done that sometimes. But wouldn't that be weird? He's her father, not her mother. Except now he has to be both, doesn't he?
If she has a bottle, will she go to sleep? He didn't know what kind of formula to get -- Renee had been breastfeeding -- so he'd picked up a can of every kind the little grocery store carried. Bella seems to like the soy one best, but what if it doesn't have enough nutrients? Don't babies need real milk?
He could call Sarah and ask. Except it's two in the morning and Billy would kill him.
The marriage hadn't started out on the best foot, but as her belly got bigger Renee had gotten more enthusiastic. She'd painted the kitchen cabinets. She'd bought pink curtains and lace booties (she'd been certain from the beginning it was a girl). Her hormones had gone haywire during the second trimester and they'd made love constantly, sometimes three or four times a day. There hadn't been any openings at the elementary school, but she'd put in applications everywhere between Sequim and Aberdeen (the commute didn't intimidate her) and she'd been confident that something would turn up.
Renee's smile lit up his life, and Charlie was so in love that he didn't even mind that he never went to La Push anymore. (Charlie suspected she'd picked up on their uncertainty about her; even Harry with his endless optimism had asked him what the hell he was thinking. Charlie knew they meant well, but a little more support would've been nice.)
The only problem was that Renee had grown up an army brat, and she'd spent two-thirds of her life in Arizona. Charlie loved the weather in Forks -- it made everything so green and alive -- but Renee had always been waiting for the sun to come out. She looked out the window more and more as time went on, and after Bella was born it seemed like that was all Renee had done. Just look out the window and cry.
Maybe that's why she left.
Bella makes that noise again, and Charlie feels like the worst parent in history. Bella is turning four months old next week and she speaks a completely different language from him. Harry and Billy and Sue and Sarah all seem to know what each tiny squeak means from their kids. He doesn't. He's trying to learn -- he's taken a three month leave of absence from the force while he figures out his life -- but he just doesn't understand her.
"I don't know what to do with you," he whispers at his baby. "I'm sorry."
Isabella gives him what can only be described as a frustrated look, then raises her arms impatiently. And she makes the noise.
Charlie picks her up.
Bella rests her head on his chest, puts her thumb in her mouth, and falls asleep.
***
Snacks and Brothers (Sue)
Sue brandishes a Barbie doll at the girls threateningly. "If you all don't sit and watch your movie and shut up for five minutes, I'm going to take you into the woods and leave you there to be raised by wolves."
Rachel and Rebecca give her identical smirks. Leah ignores her entirely. But Bella stares wide-eyed and falls silent, curling her two-year-old self meekly into the couch.
Sue likes Bella.
Saturday mornings are baby-sitting mornings. Sarah's at home with these kids all day, every day, and also she's incubating; Sue doesn't begrudge her wanting to sleep in and have five hours to herself for once. And the guys get up at five AM to go fishing. They get all cranky and shit if they don't have their private man-time at least once a week.
So the kids get dropped off at the Clearwaters' house, and Sue wrangles four children under the age of four until noon. She has not yet killed any of them, but it is only a matter of time.
(Many people expect that Sue, being a nurse, will have a sweet and warm bedside manner. Sue is not that kind of nurse. Sue is the nurse they call when the patient needs to be threatened with an enema before he'll take his medication.)
"I wanna snack," Rebecca says. At Sue's narrowed eyes she quickly adds, "Please."
If their mouths are full they'll talk less. "All right. What do you want?"
"Peenabutter cups!"
"Nem-an-nems!"
"Cheese!"
She knows it's her own fault for asking an open-ended question, but still Sue snaps, "Quiet. You can have goldfish or you can have pretzels."
A chorus of groans.
"Oh, nothing then? Okay, that's fine--"
"Goldfish."
"Goldfish."
"Goalfishes."
No response.
Sue glances at Bella. The Black twins run roughshod over the little thing; even Leah talks right through the girl's whispered sentences. Sue keeps waiting for the other kids' outgoing personalities to rub off, but apparently Bella's too much like Charlie. (And thank God for that. The more of her father she's got in her the less room there is for her mother. Sue still wants to spit whenever she hears that bitch's name.) "And what do you want, Bella?"
"Prezzles, Missus Kearaller please," she whispers.
Sue really likes Bella.
"All right, then." She points back at the television. "Watch the movie and sit still and I'll get your snacks."
"And apple juice?"
"Yes, and apple juice." Enthusiastic cheers, drowned out when Leah pokes at the remote and Tchaikovsky starts to play. Sue encourages them to watch Sleeping Beauty because the heroines are middle-aged spinster ladies and the villain is a gorgeous woman who can turn into a dragon. Cinderella is not allowed in the front door. No girl that Sue has any influence over will learn that tidy housekeeping will get you a man.
Admittedly, Sue's man loves her in spite of the fact that there's a two foot stack of dirty dishes in the sink. But still.
"And we're gonna have a baby brother," Rachel is explaining when Sue comes out of the kitchen with the snacks. "And we're gonna name the baby Prince Phillip like in the movie."
Rebecca shoves Rachel back into the couch cushion. "Are not. We're gonna name the baby The Tramp like in the dog movie."
"Nuh-uh!"
"Uh-huh!"
Leah looks up at Sue excitedly. "Mama, I wanna baby brother!"
"Baby brothers only come to big girls who use the potty," Sue explains. (Harry has been hinting recently that another child might be nice. Sue has no intention of going off the pill until Leah's out of diapers.) She sets the goldfish box on the couch and gives a plastic baggie of pretzels to Bella.
"I wanna brotha too," Bella says.
Sue frowns. Charlie has shown no signs of dating whatsoever. "Well... maybe one day."
Bella looks down and picks at the edge of her diaper thoughtfully.
"If you want," Rebecca says, sticking her arm in the goldfish box up to the elbow, "you c'n borrow our brother sometimes."
"Yeah. Mommy says babies are noisy." Rachel makes a face. "So we might not want Prince Phillip all the time."
Bella's eyebrows scrunch together. "But... she's not my brotha. Right?"
"He," Sue corrects. "Brothers are boys, so he'll be a he, not a she."
The girls look at her blankly, then...
"A boy?"
"We don't wanna boy!"
"Gross!"
"Ew!"
Sue makes a mental note to renew her birth control prescription.
( next)